Extension Location

Introduction

Brackets extensions currently reside in a directory that is next to the main brackets index.html file. This is problematic for several reasons:

• On the mac, the extensions are inside the Brackets.app package. On Windows, the extensions are in the Program Files directory (assuming you installed in the default location). Adding or removing extensions modifies these directories, which requires elevated user permissions.
• If the app is signed, adding or removing extensions invalidates the signature.
• Extensions are not retained when upgrading to a newer build of Brackets (this is partially due to the location of the extension, and partially due to the fact that we don't have an in-place update mechanism).

This is a proposal for moving the extensions directory to the users home directory. Here is the [backlog entry] (https://trello.com/c/xI1B3nok).

Extension Directory

At launch, Brackets will look for extensions in the following locations:

Mac

• /Users/<user>/Library/Application Support/Brackets/extensions/user - This is where the user will install extensions

Win

• <user folder>\AppData\Roaming\Brackets\extensions\user (in a standard windows installation, this maps to C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Brackets\extensions\user) - This is where the user will install extensions.

Both

• <brackets src>/extensions/default - Extensions that are packaged with Brackets
• <brackets src>/extensions/dev - For convenience when developing extensions (see below for details)

Disabled Extensions

Next to the extensions/user directory is an extensions/disabled directory. By default, both of these directories are empty. Extensions from the user directory will be loaded when Brackets is launched. Extensions in the disabled directory are not loaded. Having these two directories side-by-side enables a tool like [Extension Manager] (https://github.com/jdiehl/brackets-extension-manager) to easily enable/disable extensions.

Extensions checked in to the src/extensions/disabled directory will not be copied to the user's extensions/disabled directory. We should consider eliminating this directory.

"Show Extensions Folder"

The Help > Show Extensions Folder menu item opens up the extensions folder in the user directory.

Extension Development

Many (most?) extension developers work with a local copy of the Brackets source code. For convenience, Brackets will load extensions from a src/extensions/dev directory inside the Brackets repo. This way developers don't need to dig through the user directories to put their extension code (or a symlink).

API Changes

One new function is added to brackets-shell:

 
    /**
     * Returns the full path of the application support directory.
     * On the Mac, it's /Users/<user>/Library/Application Support/GROUP_NAME/APP_NAME
     * On Windows, it's C:\Users\\<user>\AppData\Roaming\GROUP_NAME\APP_NAME
     *
     * Note: this function will *not* create the directory if it doesn't exist. 
     *
     * @return {string} Full path of the application support directory
     */
     native function GetApplicationSupportDirectory();
     appshell.app.getApplicationSupportDirectory = function () {
         return GetApplicationSupportDirectory();
     }